Help betta fins look ragged

[83tty]

My betta seems fine. Just his fins i am worried about. I have a ten gallon with a paradise male betta and two mystery snails. He was getting stressed when the snails would come in his territory. Seems to be getting used to them. I do water changes every two weeks. Have live plants. Dont know the water levels. Water temp is 80. Anyone know what this is? What i could use to help them look better

 

[Sunnyspots]

It might be fin rot. You said you change water every two weeks, do you have a filter for the rest of the time? How much water do you change? It may be that you need to increase the changes.

What to do if your fish gets sick

If your fish ever looks sick or unwell, then the following steps might help. Test the Water and Clean the Tank. Test the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH and write the results down in numbers. Check it for general hardness (GH) and carbonate hardness (KH) too if you can, but...

www.fishforums.net

Might be helpful for management.

 

[83tty]

yes i have a filter going always. Should i do water changes everyday? I also have two mystery snails and live plants.

 

[Sunnyspots]

Every day water changes might be taking it a bit far! But if it is fin rot (and I'm hoping someone else might come along and confirm it) then I gather it's due to the tank needing more frequent or deeper cleaning. Do you test your water to check that there isn't a problem there, including a build up of nitrates? Do you do gravel cleaning and rinse out your filter sponge each month or so? They are all the sorts of things which might help prevent illness. Those and avoiding stress, which you say seems sorted now. As for treatment, I'd rather someone else confirm the problem and advise

@Colin_T
Is that something you wouldn't mind helping with? I'm still too inexperienced to be sure.

 

[83tty]

I started doing weekly water changes. Hope this works. I also was over feeding my beta. I do clean the gravel during water changes. Also been cleaning the filter and changing it ever month. As for testing the water no i havent. I still need to get a test kit. Thanks for your help tho

 

[Sunnyspots]

You're welcome. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful!
One thing worth a try might be doing a forum search for fin rot and see if that explains what you see. Otherwise I'm out of ideas

 

[Colin_T]

I started doing weekly water changes. Hope this works. I also was over feeding my beta. I do clean the gravel during water changes. Also been cleaning the filter and changing it ever month. As for testing the water no i havent. I still need to get a test kit. Thanks for your help tho

Don't change the filter media/ materials because you get rid of the good filter bacteria and end up having ammonia and nitrite problems, which cause fin rot and fish to die.

When you clean a power filter, wash the filter media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. tip the bucket of dirty water on the lawn.

The only time you replace filter media is if it starts to fall apart. Then you replace it with some sponge from another brand of filter like an AquaClear HOB (hang on back style). You can cut the sponge to fit the filter using a pair of scissors. Sponges will last for years and get cleaned by rinsing in a bucket of tank water. You can even put sponges in the filter while you have other media so you don't lose as much bacteria when it comes time to throw out the old filter pad/ cartridge when it falls apart.